Past Lithys (old format)
Check out Lithy entries from previous years.
  Company: Vipnet  Entry submitted by: Hrvoje Puljko (puljac) Community (Forum) expert Community: VIP forum (http://forum.vip.hr) Lithy category: Best Community Design   Vipnet is the first private mobile network operator in Croatia... See more...
  Company: Vipnet  Entry submitted by: Hrvoje Puljko (puljac) Community (Forum) expert Community: VIP forum (http://forum.vip.hr) Lithy category: Best Community Design   Vipnet is the first private mobile network operator in Croatia, a part of the Telekom Austria Group. By entering the Croatian telecommunications market in 1998, Vipnet introduced competition into mobile telephony. Over the last 15 years Vipnet acquired the status of the most renowned innovation leader on the telecommunications market in Croatia.   Vipnet was the first in Europe to demonstrate the HSPA network, thus offering mobile Internet access that is faster than ADSL. Furthermore, Vipnet was among the first in the world to successfully test HSPA+ technology for mobile broadband.   In June 2013 at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing in Zagreb Vipnet set a new world record for the fixed segment with speeds of 5 Gbit/s using the hybrid fiber coaxial (HFC) network, and in the mobile segment presented speeds of up to 300 Mbit/s based on 4.5G – LTE Advanced technology. In September 2012 and again this year Vipnet was proclaimed winner in the Best value for money for business in the Business Best Buy Award. Vipnet currently has more than 2 million customers.   Vip forum as a goal has multiscreen customer experience, to increase street credibility, and to be customers' first choice when searching for support information’s.     Vip forum also has a purpose to increase brand awareness and to be the place for engaging existing and future Vip customers.     THE STRUCTURE In August 2013 we launched the first telco brand community in Croatia.   It is a small step in the world but big in Croatia where customers  don’t forgive unfriendly functionalities & illogical designs, because community is here for the users, not for designers or employees!   Well established names from online community and IT/telco journalists were involved in Vip forum trial and helped to design final version of community platform.   During the 2 week trial, beta testers spent more than 200 hours online and generated more than 50 different ideas and improvements which were implemented in final Vip forum version.   We made it clear in structure, transparent at the glance, light to use and spend time, easy to find answers & support.   We are the first telco community which is open to non-Vip & Vip customers with the intention to get customers help themselves.   COVER PAGE CALL FOR ACTION   FRONT PAGE BIG VISUAL BUTTONS – we are offering a way for a customer to Registrate / Login in to our community with these BIG buttons, familiar colors and sentences that are describing the action.     After customer login, he can now use his visual designed User Panel:   On the right side MENU of the cover we have visual help icons (links) to support customer  if this is his first time on Forum:   After customer login, he can now use his personalized custom component which depends on his rank and role: Personalized links Greeting and user avatar Last user posts   MENU CUSTOM COMPONENT TAB beneath main category icons allows customers to have an overview of what's new in a few seconds!     And depending on if user is logged in or not, he can see the personalized posts he didn’t read from the last visit to the community:     CSS CUSTOMIZATION   We made lot of CSS customization in our community but the latest demands from our community members were this three for better functionality and visualization:   Provided better “SOLUTION PROVIDED” visualization:   Provided better “QUOTE” custom visibility and automatically @mention the user we quote:   MOBILE VERSION   Cover page easy to use! Very similar to desktop version which is also available for mobiles. Same icons, structure & features are now available to customers!                
Company: Vodafone Australia  Entry submitted by: Timothy Hanslow (Tim_h) Community Care Manager Community: Vodafone Community (http://community.vodafone.com.au) Lithy category: Best Community Design   Vodafone Australia is the third bigg... See more...
Company: Vodafone Australia  Entry submitted by: Timothy Hanslow (Tim_h) Community Care Manager Community: Vodafone Community (http://community.vodafone.com.au) Lithy category: Best Community Design   Vodafone Australia is the third biggest mobile network provider in Australia and has a 20-year history of providing excellent value to its customers. In 2010, network issues driven by the sharp uptake in smartphone use created problems for our customers, that saw our customer sentiment and NPS drop rapidly. The launch of Vodafone Community came at a time when our customers needed support, a place to share, talk to one another and to get information to us, and for us to talk to them directly.    Vodafone launched the Community almost three years ago as a way for customers to communicate with us. It gave customers a voice to talk to us openly and publicly. We loved the Community for the customer interactions, their honesty in saying “me too” with other’s issues, and their support and information in solving one another’s issues. Lithium provided the platform we wanted to get the incredible expertise our customer base and let them work together. We named the Community because of its goals. Our customers were going to be having these conversations anyway so we wanted to ensure we were part of them.    We set out to redesign the Community last year to deliver a better user experience and to freshen our design to keep up with our other web properties. The core goals were to get users to contribute more, remove the barriers for new users, to focus on our members and to get information to people as quickly as possible.   We began by first tackling the core page design and sliding the right-hand sidebar into all of our pages from the homepage to threads. We use the space to create consistent, usable elements for our members. The top right of every page is the customer’s voice. Every page has a comment, reply or post topic button. We’ve added a dropdown selector to choose a board when posting from the front page. We’re taking away the need to hunt or dig for joining in and letting customers engage in the conversation as soon as they are ready.   Right alongside the “voice” is the stats. Our numbers dive into every conversation showing the total posts, kudos, contributors and views. The stats help people to see how conversations are moving and how active things are. They update in real time and give users a quick visual view of what’s popular.     The last addition to the sidebar is our two post widgets to keep users abreast of the Community from within a topic view. We’ve used a ‘recent posts’ widget to show a user their most recent contributions. Keeping this visible in the sidebar on all pages lets super users keep track of updates to recent conversations without needing to navigate through boards or the homepage. A user receives a visual reminder of updates to recent conversations by the bolded thread titles and can easily continue in multiple conversations at once.   User avatars have been rebranded into hubs of information. We use smaller square avatars across the design to show who is taking part. Avatars are easier to recall than a long list of usernames and they provide a constantly moving parade of people to interact with. The visual anchor of the avatars responds on mouseover to a hover card with the user’s core stats and details. From the sidebar, to the frontpage or in a thread, a user’s avatar is a moving card of their real time stats.   Into the thread view, We’ve split things into three columns, and then reduced the left column to only the avatar. Like other social networks the avatar provides a visual cue to the author but the post stands on its own. Unessential information from a post is moved into the avatar card leaving the conversation in the spotlight. The footer of each post contains an “action bar” at the bottom right allowing users to reply, quick reply, share on social and kudos. Just like the “voice” button at the top of the pages, users have a single location to interaction with a post – We’re removing meaningless mouse movement across the page as they navigate.     Threads also received a makeover in the form of labels. We’ve designed them as physical tags like a filing cabinet and placed them across the top of each thread. These bright, colourful labels show users the mobile device being discussed in the thread with a different colour for each manufacturer for easy recognition. And if a thread is about a device the user says they own, we mark that for them too. It’s fast and simple for our users to know if they can contribute to the conversation at hand.     The front page received an enormous overhaul to fit with our goals. We’ve replaced the tall vertical category list with a three-quarter width navigation menu without tabs or options. Users can quickly see the list of available boards and categories without needing to scroll around or dig through a list. It was a core part of the redesign to let users move around the Community quickly. Narrowing the navigation down to a shorter vertical element freed up space on the page to introduce a feed of recent posts and solutions, ensuring a dynamic looking page with fresh content whenever a user visits. We chose recent posts over topics because of the sticky nature of many of our conversations. Keeping users up to date on the full conversations continuing and not just those recently started lets hot topics rise to the top and stay there.     We’ve rounded out our user focus by shuffling of the profile page. The avatar has been doubled in size and is followed by a new custom component showing the mobile device a user is currently using. These bold visuals keep user profiles looking fresh and colourful with lots of white space to let your eyes flow across it. We fill the rest of the page with recent topics contributed to, and an activity feed showing the users actions step by step.    Since our redesign we’re seeing an up lift in super user engagement and resolution rates. As well as the average posts per thread has increased. Conversations are stickier and people are spending more time on site. The overall post volumes have increased slightly because we’re getting more quality content in front of people more often, so casual users have less need to post, but still actively participate.
Company: ING Direct  Entry submitted by: Nicolas Hun (nicolashun) Brand Content and Social Media Manager Community: Le Web Café ING Direct (https://communaute.ingdirect.fr/)         Lithy category: Best Community Design     ING Direct... See more...
Company: ING Direct  Entry submitted by: Nicolas Hun (nicolashun) Brand Content and Social Media Manager Community: Le Web Café ING Direct (https://communaute.ingdirect.fr/)         Lithy category: Best Community Design     ING Direct has launched its Lithium community to give visibility and highlight the good relationship it has with its customers, but also to reduce the costs of customer relations mainly services by call.   In December 2013, ING Direct France, the leader of online banking in France, launched its Lithium community, "Le Web Café".     This community, 100% integrated in ingdirect.fr website enriches the existing ecosystem "Web Café" of the brand composed from a Facebook Page, a Twitter account and 2 physical coffees in Paris and Lyon.   It was really important for the brand to use the name of "Web Café" as "Web Café" is the link for all the places where clients and prospects can discuss and share each other and with ING Direct, but also to give a possibility for the clients to tell and share their satisfaction and good relation with the bank.   The Lithium community is composed of three bricks:   1) A forum where clients and prospects can directly and freely discuss with the bank's customers, allowing customers to share their experiences and expertise with the community.     2) A lab where members can test and share their ideas to improve and build the bank of tomorrow.     3) A blog to decrypt, give tips, and share all useful informations to members to complete their projects.     A global coherence has been respected in term of graphical guidelines with flat design and limited range of colors (white, blue and orange), but also in term of the tonality in line with ING Direct philosophy.   "A clear, simple and transparent bank."   The architecture and the design were thought to offer the best user experience. The tab navigation has been chosen to offer a quick and easy navigation on desktop but also on tablets. To stay in line with the positioning of ING Direct, the name of the categories and subcategories has been built around usages and not around a product range. For example, we're not talking about a "current account", but of "money every day" to be more online with our client's needs and usages of banking. We're a partner who understands them and their life and not only a dealer of products. The users of the community may easily find the good category to ask questions and the right place to share their expertise.   The community has been enriched with a rich gallery of avatars (male and female). The design of those avatars answered several requirements. They are serious enough for a bank company, rich, but also sympathetic. Some dedicated and personalized avatars have been drawn for the ING Direct community team.                    The community is a real success. In 4 months, the community has about 2 800 active members and more than 73 000 unique visitors. 741 discussions have been raised and more than 270 ideas to improve the lives of customers and build the bank of tomorrow have been shared.   Our business results: "Le Web Café", with more than 466 247 pageviews and 741 discussions. 69% - Topics posted by members generated reactions from other members. 45% - Topics posted by members received answers from other members. 21% - Discussions related to the category "Become a customer" 62% of these discussions are about the process    
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Company: Fox Sports Australia  Entry submitted by: Shae Marlow (ShaeM) Community Manager Community: The Crowd (http://thecrowd.foxsports.com.au) Lithy category: Best Community Design     FOX SPORTS is Australia’s leading producer of sp... See more...
Company: Fox Sports Australia  Entry submitted by: Shae Marlow (ShaeM) Community Manager Community: The Crowd (http://thecrowd.foxsports.com.au) Lithy category: Best Community Design     FOX SPORTS is Australia’s leading producer of sports television coverage and is home to Australia's favourite subscription TV sports channels, as well as Australia's number one general sports website – foxsports.com.au.   FOX SPORTS’ mission is to take fans closer to their favourite sports than ever before. We feed the passion of fans and give them access to sports, players and insights like they’ve never had - offering them an entertainment experience like no other, every day of the week.   Sport is incredibly tribal and controversial topics arise every day that people want to talk about. Our vision was to offer the more passionate sports fans a seat at the table to discuss the hottest topics with the best sports talent in the country.   The Crowd is a new FOX SPORTS community forum which offers fans and readers a place to offer their comments, thoughts and opinions on what is happening in sport at any time – the ultimate home of sports conversation in Australia.   The Crowd key outcomes: -       Own share of voice of sports conversation in Australia -       Build fan engagement by providing a platform for fans to interact with the best sports talent and key influencers in Australia -       Monetise through third party advertising   FOX SPORTS Australia is the leader in delivering sports entertainment and so in order to bring a new and innovative digital product to life in a competitive market, it was important to align with Lithium.   Lithium provided a market-leading platform for FOX SPORTS to launch The Crowd with immediate community vibrancy and the most innovative user experience – a forum at the forefront of sports communities in Australia. The Crowd has been the most important digital product to come out of FOX SPORTS Australia in five years.   Lithum has enabled The Crowd to integrate existing FOX SPORTS digital and social strategies as a way to drive deeper engagement with fans, with immediate success. The key differentiators of the FOX SPORTS community include:          FOX SPORTS designed and developed the community in a short six-week period and within a limited $30,000 budget.          It differs from most forums in that the platform is for enthusiast conversation and not necessarily customer service and product support.            A new approach was needed in building a less traditional community to create revenue through third party advertising.          FOX SPORTS adopted a new and innovative style to the standard Lithium forum homepage. Two bold design customisations included, making latest content the key feature and demoting the search toolbar.          To ignite and excite existing FOX SPORTS users and attract Australian sports fans in an established market, it was critical the Lithium based community was developed with the FOX SPORTS brand and personality at the forefront.   Customised features of The Crowd community include: Designed the homepage with a dynamic latest content feature for all sports as the centre of the community Repositioned the search toolbar to the middle of the homepage so users levitate to latest user discussions instead Branded and surfaced ‘Loudest crowd posts’ on the homepage and board pages   Integration of FOX SPORTS talent. Specific ranking icons, names and professional avatars were created, ensuring FOX SPORTS Presenters and Journalists etc are clearly identifiable    Easy navigation for fans across FOX SPORTS digital platforms. For example, from the FOX Football website when a user clicks The Crowd in the main navigation bar, they’re taken directly to Football community board (and not The Crowd homepage)    A targeted and alternating brand image on the homepage, where a logged in user is excited by   ‘ALWAYS TALKING SPORT’ but a logged out user is enticed with ‘JOIN THE CROWD’    Integration of ‘Latest sports stories’ feed from FOX SPORTS, to bring users closer to the latest sports news and ignite discussions A sports ‘scoreboard’ featuring stats of The Crowd’s current activity Kudos renamed as 'points' to keep track of who’s scoring the highest    Moderators renamed as Referees, to reiterate who’s responsible for presiding over the community    Avatars designed with FOX SPORTS brand and theme in mind, where users can select either their own favourite guernsey number or their favourite sports star’s    Early and direct feedback from key influencers has been extremely positive:   “Thank you, I think this would be a great tool for sport chatter... was unique to see Paul [Kent] replying.”   “Having a recognized sports brand such as FOX SPORTS in Australia to be able to express an opinion, participate in a debate or observe an alternative perspective will be great in the long run.”   The immediate community vibrancy has exceeded all KPIs, including traffic and growth metrics as well as over 2000 posts in the first six weeks.     
Company: Barclaycard US  Entry submitted by: Jennifer Hitchens (jenh) Community Manager/Social Media Manager Community: Barclaycard Travel Community (www.BarclaycardTravel.com) Lithy category: Best Community Design   Why BarclaycardTrave... See more...
Company: Barclaycard US  Entry submitted by: Jennifer Hitchens (jenh) Community Manager/Social Media Manager Community: Barclaycard Travel Community (www.BarclaycardTravel.com) Lithy category: Best Community Design   Why BarclaycardTravel.com Should Win The Lithy Award for Best Community Design   The Barclaycard Travel Community is a one-of-a-kind design with an emphasis on travel photos that creates an aesthetically beautiful website. Community Members are encouraged to explore the site for travel inspiration and share their travel experiences to earn miles that can be redeemed for travel rewards or e-certificates.   A few key areas that differentiate the Barclaycard Travel Community design:   Real time home page updates display Community Members posted Travel Stories. Community Members enjoy an immediate gratification of seeing their Travel Story and photos directly on the Home Page. Rotating photo slide area of home page highlights the visual nature of the design and enables the Community Manager to highlight Blog and User Generated Travel Story content. Design includes an easy-to-post Travel Story process that includes a drag and drop options for uploading multiple photos seamlessly. Customized Blog Content area highlights the visual assets of each blog post as well as the Expert Travel blogger profiles. Enhanced Discussion area includes a real time Twitter feed. Revolutionary capability for both Barclaycard Arrival™ cardmembers and non-cardmembers the ability to earn miles for sharing their travel stories redeemable for travel rewards or Amazon e-certificates. Between the beautiful elegance of the design and the differentiating elements above, we believe Barclaycard Travel Community provides a step-change vision for the way digital communities will be designed in the future.   Barclaycard Travel – Home Page   Home Page features a rotating image area with emphasis on visually engaging photo content.      Cascading Travel Story tiles feature Community Member generated travel stories that emphasize the visual allure of exploring travel adventures.     Barclaycard Travel – Home Page   Home Page also contains an interactive map that encourages visitors to explore Travel Stories via location.     Barclaycard Travel  - Home Page & Search       Barclaycard Travel  - Easy Travel Storytelling     Barclaycard Travel  - Designed Blog Content     Blog format provides a highly stylized design that focuses on photos and expert travel blogger bios for easy consumption.     Each blog contains photos, kudos and comment capability as well as the ability to share out easily to social networks.     Barclaycard Travel  - Customized Discussion         Barclaycard Travel  - Unique User Profile     Barclaycard Travel  - Email Designs   Community members also receive Daily Alert emails when they have earned miles in the community. This follow-up email communication has increased engagement.     A monthly Travel Community Newsletter helps to drive increased registrations and provides an update on trending topics and blogs within the community. User generated content is also prominently featured.        
Company: Advent Software  Entry submitted by: Al Castillo (Al) Solutions Manager, Advent Direct Community Community: Advent Direct® Community (https://community.advent.com) Lithy category: Best Community Design     Advent Software has ... See more...
Company: Advent Software  Entry submitted by: Al Castillo (Al) Solutions Manager, Advent Direct Community Community: Advent Direct® Community (https://community.advent.com) Lithy category: Best Community Design     Advent Software has a 30 year history of technology leadership in the investment management industry. Our client base spans over 4,400 firms, from established global institutions to small start-up practices, in nearly 60 countries. We view our clients as collaborators, and are constantly seeking to improve our solutions to break down boundaries between systems, people, and information.   Technology as an industry, whether consumer-facing or in the enterprise, is becoming increasingly personalized for the individual user, and as a technology company, Advent strives to be at the forefront of that trend. In November 2013, Advent Software unveiled Advent Direct® Community, a new, interactive way for Advent clients and partners – from disparate parts of the investment management industry – to connect, share information, and learn best practices. In what is so frequently an adversarial and information-hoarding environment, Advent Direct Community provides a unique opportunity for financial industry practitioners and firms to engage with each other and with Advent in an open, personalized, collaborative, and transparent forum.   With Advent Direct Community, we set out to design a website that mirrored our goals of building a personal, transparent community while also providing a simple and familiar experience that would be true to the overall Advent brand. The community design thus is consistent with the look and feel of other Advent properties – simple but bold, sophisticated colors and graphics that reflect our business and client base. From the beginning, we included members of our Marketing and Product teams to ensure that everything from menu navigation and other user interactions to font and color was on par with the high standard we set for other Advent applications.   From the very first click on the landing page, the user experience is all about personalization and ease of use. Instead of sifting through cluttered information that may or may not be relevant, new users answer a few brief questions at the onset and are then presented with customized content personal to their particular interests, minimizing the number of clicks to get to that relevant, recent content.   ADVENT DIRECT® COMMUNITY PERSONAL LANDING PAGE     For example, when a user decides to “follow” a product on Advent Direct Community, they are auto-subscribed to the Lithium discussion board for that product, their menu is customized to include a direct link to the discussion board, and a product tile is added to their home page. The tile uses a “counter” approach to highlight contributions from the last seven days on the Lithium platform – Discussions, Answers, and Ideas – and it also provides a count for new and recently updated knowledge base articles. With a single click on any product tile line item, the user can see a list of the three most recent items and by clicking an item link they can view the conversation.  Alternatively, they can start a new discussion or view all discussions. Three distinct actions, one click. ADVENT DIRECT® COMMUNITY DISCUSSION BOARD     The Lithium platform has proven immensely valuable in serving as a conduit between Advent and our clients. Through the discussion area and “Idea Exchange” areas of the site, it has enabled us to deliver on our promise of transparent communication and acting on client feedback. We are particularly excited about the “Idea Exchange”, a relatively new feature of Advent Direct Community, where users can suggest, share, and vote on new ideas for Advent products. This has generated a number of constructive ideas that we are incorporating into new releases for our products. The Idea Exchange is, in effect, co-creation between Advent and our clients in action.  In addition, the Lithium platform enables users to give peers a visual “kudos” for post contributions, something which users have particularly glommed onto and helps build a network between Advent product users. Posts that are the most active or receive the most kudos are the most prominently displayed.   ADVENT DIRECT® COMMUNITY IDEA EXCHANGE       “I love how Advent has gamified Advent Direct Community. I really thrive off getting kudos from other users and rising to the top of the leadership board. I’ve also enjoyed the clean design, which allows me to navigate the site very easily. There aren’t a lot of things that distract me from finding what I need.” – Shawn Larrabee, Senior Control Analyst at JD Clark & Company, A Division of UMB Fund Services   “The design isn’t simple, but it makes things simple. I can see all the information I want to see right when I login and decide if I want to go further or go back to it later. It’s far from basic, but the design of the site makes it easy and basic for me to easily navigate to all the information that’s relevant to me with a scroll of the mouse.” – Tom Harmke, Vice President, Chief Technology Officer, Reaves Asset Management   ADVENT DIRECT® COMMUNITY BOARD ANNOUNCEMENTS     We attribute the professional, vibrant, and friendly design of the site to the remarkable success Advent Direct Community has seen almost immediately after launching. Within just three months Advent Direct Community surpassed Advent’s previous client portal in registration numbers, with 8,500 registered users. Ninety percent of registered users visit monthly and about 1/3 visit on a weekly basis. The number of unique visitors to our core products boards is consistently strong and growing – double-digit growth for our Axys, APX and Moxy products.  And users aren’t just visiting more often; they’re starting more conversations, getting more replies, and the number of answers being generated by the community is increasing.   “The enhancements to Advent Direct Community make me feel like Advent is interested in my success and my development personally because they are creating ways and avenues for me to quickly become a subject expert in my field. I didn’t really have a great connection with other Advent product users before and now I am easily able to find users who are in the same position as I am. I can reach out to these users and get the information that I need while at the same time create a strong network of professionals that allows me to excel at my job.” – Shawn Larrabee, Senior Control Analyst at JD Clark & Company, A Division of UMB Fund Services   ADVENT DIRECT® COMMUNITY DISCUSSION BOARD      
Company: Google AdWords  Entry submitted by: Agata Krzysztofik (Agata) Program Manager Community: AdWords Community (www.en.adwords-community.com) Lithy category: Best Community Design   AdWords is one of Google’s main products, used by ... See more...
Company: Google AdWords  Entry submitted by: Agata Krzysztofik (Agata) Program Manager Community: AdWords Community (www.en.adwords-community.com) Lithy category: Best Community Design   AdWords is one of Google’s main products, used by millions of businesses worldwide, from multi-million dollar companies to tiny mom-and-pop businesses.   With such a vast group of users, we wanted to create an online space where we could address any product related questions and provide strategic guidance to users in a scalable way.   We launched our AdWords Community on Lithium (in 6 languages) in 2011. The initial design was pretty “simple” reflecting the UI of broadly-known Google products such as Gmail.     Towards the end of 2012 we decide to redesign our Communities (in 8 languages at the time).     Our vision for the new design was “to provide members with a beautiful, engaging and wow! experience, and to make information easy to find”, while focusing on the following business goals:   Users are able to resolve their issues faster Users are more engaged with the Community Our Top Contributors are more satisfied with the Community Users have an improved perception of experts presence on the Community Users have increased satisfaction with ease of navigation The redesign wasn’t purely limited to a refreshed look, but also incorporated a launch of several brand new Community features that we defined and implemented together with Lithium developers.    The new Community features launched as part of the redesign spanned across 3 main themes:   1) Cleaner interface and easier, more intuitive navigation for user to get engaged   Custom Promo Carousel (With a banner builder incorporated into the admin)     More visibility into accepted solutions Stream of the most recent discussions and articles Recommended reading Quick access to follow discussions Ability to reply within thread At a glance view of discussions by categories Quick view of discussion stats   2) Better integration with social   Users able to add social networks to profile Easier social sharing of content across platforms   3) More recognition for engagement   Achievement badges Progress bar of your membership level Articles’ author box with integrated Google authorship tag The redesign has resulted in a 23% increase in the average daily accepted solutions, +28% in daily average kudos clicks and 19% increase in the overall satisfaction with the website (English Community results). The survey conducted among our Top Contributors also indicated overall positive feedback about the new UI combined with the newly added features. The main satisfaction driver among our top-engaged members were the achievement badges (86%).    
Company: Sony Europe Ltd.  Entry submitted by: Nico Henderijckx (tweety2b) European Forum & Community Manager Community: Sony Community (http://community.sony.co.uk) Lithy category: Best Community Design   Brief Company Info: Sony is o... See more...
Company: Sony Europe Ltd.  Entry submitted by: Nico Henderijckx (tweety2b) European Forum & Community Manager Community: Sony Community (http://community.sony.co.uk) Lithy category: Best Community Design   Brief Company Info: Sony is one of the world’s leading companies in consumer electronics and entertainment offering state-of-the-art and innovative products, movies, music and much more. With our products and services we provide an incredible entertainment experience for our customers.   In June 2013, we successfully migrated our 12 year-old existing European Sony Electronics forum to Lithium, which is active in 9 languages in 34 different countries.   Goals: When we decided to pursue migration to Lithium, our main goal was to create a community where people do not only talk about their technical problems, but also engage with the rest of the community in their passions by reviewing user-generated content, company generated blogs as well as tutorials and workshops to help them get more out of their products and our services.   We aspired to provide a platform where our huge fan base of photo enthusiasts could share their content in galleries participating in monthly photo competitions. In doing so, we could help them increase their photography skills by providing workshops and tutorials as well as our excellent master classes moderated by Sony World Photography Awards winners. We wanted to keep the community simple and clear, while being easy to navigate. In this context, we radically reduced the number of different boards, and provided an overview on our homepage to help users navigate.   Lithium has provided a robust platform with flexibility to adapt and measure our strategic goals via different content types, developer tools and metrics. Thanks to this flexibility, we were able to create a compelling photo gallery, full integration with other Sony websites and a simple design that follows Sony brand DNA.   After the initial launch of our community with Lithium, we continuously added new functionalities to the platform based on the feedback we received from our volunteer super users. In this context, we initiated a complete redesign of the community to have a cleaner & well-designed look.   The homepage serves as a vitrine to give an initial idea on what type of content can be found. The new design allows visitors to see the whole community structure directly from the homepage in the cleanest way, so that users can directly access their areas of interest.   New homepage design:   This also allowed us to remove “sub-category” pages to reduce the number of steps to access the target destination. Photo gallery preview brings photo gallery submissions based on most recent, while the recent posts module is adapted to bring topics uniquely and display the most basic information in a neat design.   We have simplified the navigation, pages and community structure, hence helping users to find their topics of interest much faster. The big and present search bar helps users to find related content as easy as on Google. By removing the right hand elements and moving them to the bottom of the page we focus clearly on the main message of the page such as banners, galleries and boards.   New navigation structure on homepage:   We re-purposed the whole contest module and use it as a photo/ wallpaper gallery. We really forced the limits of the module to have the most compelling look while following brand DNA. The same module is also used to run monthly Sony World Photography Award competitions which add around 2000-4000 photo submissions per month from users in 15 countries. The galleries incorporate a slideshow function, display the EXIF image information and let users access the original image file. Images can easily manage on user profile pages where album functionality has been integrated.     Lithium platform has been seamlessly integrated into our web presence and has been skinned accordingly to match our global look and feel to offer our customers the best social experience. Most elements have been simplified to provide an excellent customer journey without hassle. In addition big graphics, modern large fonts as well as the light layout give a fresh and innovative look and feel – even if you watch our community on a smartphone or tablet. Thanks to the clear design, customers can easily share their content and discuss products with each other.   The new community design is a big success! With 7,126,596 searches per month and 6,745 posts for 1,441 new topics, the community is thriving.           Additional design elements from our community   New board design:     New thread design:     New blog design:      
Company: Best Buy  Entry submitted by: Gina Debogovich (Gina) Senior Manager Community: Best Buy Unboxed (http://bestbuyunboxed.com) Lithy category: Best Community Design   Best Buy is the world’s largest multi-channel consumer elect... See more...
Company: Best Buy  Entry submitted by: Gina Debogovich (Gina) Senior Manager Community: Best Buy Unboxed (http://bestbuyunboxed.com) Lithy category: Best Community Design   Best Buy is the world’s largest multi-channel consumer electronics retailer with stores in the United States, Canada, China, and Mexico. BestBuy.com is among the top ten retail websites in the United States and we have the number one customer loyalty program of its kind. There are more than 1 billion visitors to our website and 600 million visits to our U.S. stores each year. Our Blue Shirts sales associates and Geek Squad Agents are committed to delivering on our Customer Promise:   1. The latest devices and services — all in one place 2. Knowledgeable, impartial advice 3. Competitive prices 4. The ability to shop when and where you want 5. To support you for the life of your products   Our online community brings our customer promises to life.  It is an online destination that connects our customers, Community Super Users, Blue Shirts and Geek Squad Agents together.  The Community provides impartial and knowledgeable advice that is crowdsourced through these peer-to-peer interactions.     In 2013, we re-designed our Best Buy U.S. online community (http://bestbuyunboxed.com) making searching for content even easier. We recognized that it was cumbersome for customers to locate helpful information embedded within earlier threads and that topics would sometimes repeat because the content was not easy to locate. Visitors are now served a large "ask a question" box which searches published content and peer-to-peer support.   The re-design resulted in a 500 percent increase in searches since November 2013. As a result, customers found the information they were looking for and we saw a twelve percent decrease in the number of posts. Through identifying hot topics and trends, we publish knowledge articles for customers to understand policies, procedures, buying guides and troubleshooting.      
Company: Autodesk  Entry submitted by: Michael Pascucci (MPascucci) Senior Community Engagement Manager Community: Autodesk Community (http://forums.autodesk.com/) Lithy category: Best Community Design   Autodesk, Inc. is a leader in 3D ... See more...
Company: Autodesk  Entry submitted by: Michael Pascucci (MPascucci) Senior Community Engagement Manager Community: Autodesk Community (http://forums.autodesk.com/) Lithy category: Best Community Design   Autodesk, Inc. is a leader in 3D design, engineering and entertainment software. Customers across the manufacturing, architecture, building, construction, and media and entertainment industries use Autodesk software to design, visualize, and simulate their ideas before they're ever built or created.    Like most software companies, Autodesk is focused on providing comprehensive solutions that our user base can rely on while also reaching new areas of the marketplace that were previously uncharted. Unlike other companies, Autodesk is also committed to reinventing our standard business model, moving away from standard licensing and into a flexible use anywhere, on any device, at anytime model.   With a very large portfolio of products, constant flow of acquisitions, emerging space in the consumer market, and increased access, our traditional support and feedback mechanisms no longer match our nontraditional business goals, nor are they able to keep up with the rapid customer base growth.   Lithium has provided us with an avenue to combat the above, providing a true peer-to-peer community space where users ask technical and subject matter related questions, share suggestions and answers, support overall product mastery, and collaborate on future product and service enhancement suggestions, all the while reducing the need for direct one-on-one support (forums) and Research and Development (ideastations).     Autodesk Community Redesign   In November 2013 the Autodesk Community site was rereleased, following an extensive redesign process which was supported by Lithium Professional Services. The result was a new compelling, easy-to-use site & experience that: optimizes our customers' ability to help themselves as well as each other; accelerates collaboration and innovation with our products & services; enables easy content creation, curation and distribution; all the while extending customer relationships each other, and Autodesk as a whole.     Focus of redesign:          Update the look and feel        Improve the navigation        Increase offerings for interactions        Create a visually appealing and personal experience   We feel that we have taken a major step in accomplishing what we were set out to, after listening to our Community and what their needs were.   User Benefits:   The Autodesk Community redesign will deliver member-driven changes to enhance the structure, feature set and visual design of the community – all intended to deliver answers to our customers as quickly as possible and ease unnecessary overhead contributing to the community.   We have updated the look and feel, creating a true destination for our Community. We have improved the overall navigation, creating an intuitive interface for our Community to be able to find information easily. We have “up-leveled” our Idea Station and Articles to the front page for easy access. We are also highlighting our Community members (Expert Elites), which should help to increase our activity within member profile pages. We will also be updating the ToS of the Community to add Creative Commons licensing to all community content.   Business results           Watch our video showcasing our redesign: https://autodesk.app.box.com/s/lcod9ztxrxfm7jexjyfd